By: Guardian
June 7, 2021
Nigeria’s media regulator has directed all TV and radio stations to delete their Twitter accounts and described its use as unpatriotic, escalating a widely condemned clampdown on social media.
The country’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) said all stations were to “suspend the patronage of Twitter immediately,” days after Nigeria’s government indefinitely suspended the platform and said all users who posted tweets would be prosecuted.
“Broadcasting stations are hereby advised to de-install Twitter handles and desist from using Twitter as a source … of information gathering for news,” NBC’s director, Armstrong Idachaba, said. “It would be unpatriotic for any broadcaster in Nigeria to continue to patronise the suspended Twitter as a source of its information.”
More than 39 million Nigerians have Twitter, according to NOI Polls, a public opinion and research organisation.